AnalysisRelative shadow prices of social capital for household-level paper recycling units in Vietnam

This study employs a parametric deterministic input distance function for computing the relative shadow prices of social capital with respect to physical capital and labor for household-level paper-recycling units in Vietnam. The results indicate that social capital has positive effects on the production efficiency of paper-recycling units. More specifically, the contribution of a 1% increase in social capital to production efficiency improvements is much greater than that of one million Vietnamese dong of physical capital, but less than that of 100 worker-hours of labor. Furthermore, associational activity and trust are the most valuable out of the four components of social capital and an increase of 1% in the measures of associational activity and trust is equal to an increase of US$364.936 and US$337.103 in the value of physical capital, respectively. The results also indicate that the relative shadow prices of the reciprocity and associational activity measures are highest for the lowest income group; whereas those of trust and information sharing are highest among the higher income groups.